


the griffon's wing

by erebones



Series: secrets to a good life [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8283374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: Felix has an empty space on his arm that needs to be filled. Carver has an idea.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Earlgreyer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Earlgreyer/gifts).



> Takes place a few years after the end of Secrets to a Good Life. A birthday present for my dear earlgreyer <3

“Hey there, handsome.”

Felix startles and half-turns, glaring at Carver over his shoulder. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Longer than you’d like.” With a recalcitrant smile tugging at his lips, Carver comes across the bedroom and rubs his hands up Felix’s bare arms, chafing warmth into the colorful vines that curl and flower up his arms and all across the breastplate inked into his chest. Felix watches him do it in the reflection of their full-length mirror, admiring his pale, clever fingers as they trace the curvature of his tattoos, surely as familiar to him now as they are to Felix.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Carver murmurs in his ear, “since you’re bloody gorgeous without hardly anything on, but why’re you standing in front of the mirror in only your pants? I think Mum’ll be scandalized if you show up like this.”

“I’m thinking about another tattoo.” He pushes his reading glasses up into his hair and turns around, abandoning his reflection for the warmth of Carver’s arms around his waist. Carver lets him nudge his way to standing on the tops of his loafered feet, smiling, and kisses him softly without being asked.

“That’s a pretty big deal, isn’t it?” he says when they separate, eyes wandering along the ink already carved into Felix’s shoulders and chest. “I mean, you only get tats for really important things, yeah?”

“Important _people_ ,” Felix corrects. He laces his fingers into the unruly curls falling over Carver’s forehead—it’s the sweetest thing in the world, how untamed his hair becomes when he lets it grow a little too long—and pushes them back so he can rub the furrow developing between his eyebrows with his thumb. He isn’t frowning _now_ , but he’s frowned enough in his thirty years of life that he’s got a little line starting to form. “The ones who really make an impact on my life."

“Mmm. And who’s this one for, then? Somebody I don’t know about?” He waggles his eyebrows impertinently and laughs when Felix drags his hair back down over his eyes.

“Don’t pretend to be stupider than you are, love. It’s _you_ , of course. I—mmf!” He’s cut off with a kiss, sudden and determined, and he gives in to it for a little while, enjoying Carver’s enthusiasm. It’s only when Carver starts sucking on his lower lip that he pushes him away, regretful. Now isn’t the time to be getting hot and bothered. “Don’t pretend to be surprised. As if it could be anyone else.”

“I’m not _surprised_. It’s just, it’s nice. I like the idea of you… keeping me close.” He shrugs, embarrassed, and Felix steps away to finish getting dressed. At this rate they’ll never make it to the Hawke family dinner.

“The only problem,” he says, fishing in the closet for an appropriate shirt, “is that I’m not sure _what_ the tattoo should be. I had thought a hawk, but that feels a bit too… obvious.” He pulls out an old favorite, navy blue with tiny white umbrellas printed on that Carver calls his _rainy day shirt_. He’d worn it on their first date, when Carver had kissed him in the rain on the front stoop of his apartment building, and he smiles with fuzzy nostalgia as he slides it on and fiddles with the buttons.

“Where would you put it?” Carver asks. He takes pity on Felix’s stiff fingers and does the buttons up for him, knuckling the posey inked onto his breastplate as the plackets of the shirt edge together.

“On my arm, of course. There’s a bit of empty space on my bicep that’s just asking to be filled.” He kisses Carver’s palm in thanks. “I’ll think of something. _We_ will, I mean.”

Carver nods slowly, eyes drifting inward as Felix goes to finish dressing. He isn’t offended by his sudden silence—he’s thinking it over, and Felix takes the intense focus as a compliment. The tattoo isn’t just for Felix, after all. It’s also for Carver. A physical, tangible symbol of their relationship. Felix sits to lace up his shoes and glances at his left hand.

No ring, not yet. Even though they’ve acknowledged since the beginning that they’re both of the marrying kind. Almost two years they’ve been together now, and while the road has not been easy, the certainty of Carver by his side is like a mountain face, implacable, immovable. He doesn’t need a ring to prove that. But sometimes… well, sometimes he thinks it would be nice. He flexes his fingers against the ache settling in, though it’s scarcely more than a few days into October, and looks up when he feels Carver drawing near.

“I think I know what you can use,” Carver says, pulling him to his feet, “but I have to talk it over with Mum first. I’m not sure I remember what it looks like.”

Bemused, Felix agrees, and he slips his hand into Carver’s for the walk down to the garage.

//

Carver brings it up after dinner. He and Felix are in the kitchen helping Leandra with cleanup, shoulder to shoulder by the sink. From here they can hear the genial ruckus from the living room where Bethany and Merrill are teasing Fenris about something, with Anders’ laughter a low, rumbling counterpoint running underneath. Felix watches as Leandra’s face transforms, going soft and introspective in the same way her son’s had earlier; she hands the next plate over thoughtfully and reaches for a hand towel.

“I think I have it tucked away somewhere. Let me go see.”

“You have a family crest?” Felix asks when she’s gone, running the plate under the sink before passing it to Carver to be put in the dishwasher.

“Yeah. Well, technically it’s the Amel family crest, but Dad took it and adapted it to fit the Hawks. I think the original is a dragon, or something? And Dad made it into a stylistic bird sort of shape. You’ll see.”

By the time Leandra returns, all the dishes have been put away and Carver and Felix have joined the others in the living room. Outside, the garden is grey and brittle, a few last scraps of color clinging on to life. Marian has just come in, scraping her boots on the mat, when Leandra comes downstairs with a photo album in her hands. It looks custom-made, leather bound with a shape stamped into the cover in lieu of a name plaque. But Leandra opens it before he can get a good look, and slides one of the photos free for him to look at it.

“It was Malcolm’s idea. He thought my family crest was too stuffy, and he wanted to modernize it, make it something both of us could own.”

He feels Carver coming up behind him to look, and he holds the photo carefully between thumb and forefinger as he takes in the details. It’s clearly an old photograph, faded with time, taken in front of a trailer with the blue sky faded to a papery cornflower color in the background. In the foreground stands the spitting image of Carver, his hair a bit shaggier and his beard curlier and more unruly, but grinning with the same irrepressible spirit that Carver hides under layers of dark humor and introversion. And propped under his arm, braced between his elbow and the ground, is an enormous wooden shield. It looks unfinished, with wood shavings still scattering the ground and not a paint pot in sight, but the design carved into the front stands out cleanly: two birds of prey done in thick, geometric lines, facing one another, their wings outstretched and feet interlaced in the middle. It’s definitely pseudo-medieval, more like two griffons than two hawks, and sudden Felix knows what he wants his tattoo to be.

“Can I take a picture of this? Or photocopy it?”

“Of course you may, dear. Keep it for now, if you need, and return it when you’re done with it. Here, I’ll get a little baggie for you.” Leandra whisks away to the kitchen and returns with a small plastic sandwich bag for him to slip it into. They pass it around this way, everyone chiming in with their admiration for the design, and Felix turns to find Carver watching him.

“What do you think?” he murmurs, reaching out to squeeze his biceps.

Felix just smiles. “It’s going to be a surprise.”

//

Carver insists on holding his hand. Felix thinks it’s adorable, considering this is the smallest and least intricate tattoo he’s ever received, but he allows it, lacing their fingers together and squeezing occasionally when he needs to let off some of the pressure.

“There you are,” Mae says after an hour or so, switching the gun off for good. “Come back next week and I’ll finish the shading.”

She passes over a mirror and Carver takes it, holding it for Felix to see. Inked into his upper arm, right where the flowering vines had parted, two griffons face one another, talons interlaced and their beaks nearly touching. It’s a clever design, very nearly realistic in the center but morphing into more geometric shapes around the edges, and the borders of the wings and tail extend to form the suggestion of a shield around which the vines now curl.

“It’s perfect,” he says to Mae, though he’s looking at Carver while he says it. Carver’s mouth pulls to the side in a half-smile, and he nods in silent agreement.

“Is this gonna be your last, sweets?” she asks, busily wiping down her work area and prepping for a clean sweep of all her equipment.

“We’ll see,” Felix says blandly, getting a peal of laughter in reply.

“You know what they say—it’s addictive. Fifty pounds says I’ll see you back here in a year or two.” She nods to Carver, flicking a curl of golden hair out of her face. “And what about you, big boy? Are you going to get anything else?”

Carver touches the little scrap of plastic peeking out of his collar, covering the touch-up she’d done of the Star of David on his collarbone. “Maybe. I have a few ideas.”

Felix raises his eyebrows—this is the first he’s heard of it—but Mae only nods and waves him off when he tries to reach for his pocketbook.

He’s not up to driving with the persistent ache in his arm, so Carver takes the wheel on the way home. Felix can’t help casting look at him every now and again, trying to picture what ink Carver might want to get. If he knows the direction of Felix’s thoughts, Carver doesn’t own to it. Instead he whistles aimlessly through his teeth, one hand on the wheel and the other on Felix’s thigh, and when they get home he only gives him a quick kiss and goes to rummage in the fridge for supper ingredients.

Between one thing and another, Felix forgets about Carver’s throwaway mention of getting a tattoo. He’s presenting some of his latest research in conjunction with Fiona Chevin at Val Royeux University in a few weeks, and he’s all in a flurry preparing and revising until the very last minute. Carver drives him to the airport at the end of the month, kisses him goodbye, and Felix is buried up to his ears in anthropology for the next forty-eight hours.

When he lands in London it’s raining. Of course. He’s gloomy and cranky for as long as it takes to disembark and then he sees Carver waiting at arrivals, holding a _Doctor Felix Alexius_ sign with little hearts over the i’s, and his sour mood balloons into euphoria. Grinning, he runs the last few steps and throws himself at him.

“Miss me?” Carver asks, laughing as he loops an arm around his waist and pulls him in tight.

“Longest two days of my life. But it’s over. And it was good. I already told you all the details over the phone, I won’t go over it again.” He rocks up on tiptoe to kiss him, grabbing his wrist for support, and startles back when Carver makes a pained face. “Carv? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just—here.” He free his wrist and pushes up the sleeve of his jacket. Felix stares.

“Carver Hawke! You little sneak!”

“Er… surprise?”

Felix ignores him and takes his arm, more gently this time, examining the black design that curls around his wrist like a cuff. It’s his family crest, geometric beaks nearly meeting right in the center of his arm, the tails extending down to where his wrist meets the palm of his hand, framing the veins that blur beneath his skin. Further up, underneath the sleeve, a single vine curls around and down to frame the crest like a shield, with tiny little blossoms budding here and there. Felix swallows hard.

“Did Mae do it?”

“Of course. I didn’t have any good references on hand, so I needed someone who knew what yours looked like. The vines and things, I mean.” He opens his hand and Felix slides his into it, struck dumb. “Is it… is it okay? Do you like it?”

“I love it,” Felix blurts, tearing his eyes away from the ink to look into his boyfriend’s face. _This is better than a ring._ “I love _you_.”

“Oh good.” He grins with stark relief, and leans down to rest their foreheads together. “I love you, too. D’you want to come home now?”

“Please.” He foists his bag on Carver, who hitches it over his shoulder as though it weighs nothing, and they walk hand-in-hand through the airport, Carver’s forearm bared for all to see.


End file.
